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I bought a nice big VFT a couple weeks ago... and i came to the realization that one of the leaves is twisted like a twist tie almost... its weird... and the leaf curls around another trap... should i leave this phenomenon there? has anyone else seen anything like this? i will try to get a picture of it up soon...

I have just repotted my VFT (before hand the leaves were a bit twisty) and now they are really curled (making the repotting rather difficult). The traps and leaves are all sort of intertwined.

Also the stems aren't strong enough to support the traps and most of the traps are partially resting on the ground. (the plant only has 8 leaves/stems and the traps are all about 1" in length). Could this be due to a lack of something (humidity/light/water)?

I know first hand that humidy determines whether the leaves are on the earth or are suspended in the air. When i got my Vft 1 year ago, it was a little tiny thing which had all its leaves on the soil. Now it is 3 times the size and all but one of the traps are virtually vertical. My Vft is in a aquarium on a windowsill with a piered lid for air.

Note also that there are 2 different types of leaves, spring and autumn. Spring leaves lend to me long ones which are vertical, and autumn ones are shorter and are thicker leaves.

Hi Wally, Is it the petiole (the leafy part below the trap)that is twisted or the base of the trap itself? I have had the trap spine base on some common VFTs come out twisted around in a 360 degree loop on occasion, they never quite unwound as they developed and came out sideways or even pointed down! If two of these developed side by side and tangled they could easly do a "twisty tie" thing, I would not worry too much about it.

Oli, some varieties do have leaves strongly curled down as normal growth, if the traps are well colored your light is ok, if they are pale, weak or mostly green then boost the light levels, but 1" traps sound healthy so yours may just like hugging the ground! My plants usualy have about 6 to 8 leaves at any one time under strong light conditions, I think that the "50 leaves per plant" situations develop under lower light conditions when the plant is trying to grab as much light as possible but still growing OK. If your color is OK give it some time and see if the summer growth does not straighten the leaves out for you. M2CW.

I have had this happen on my Green Dragon VFT. Occasionally leaves come out with twisted petioles as you describe, but sometimes it's even weirder. One of the leaves on it has a notch in the petiole extension, and another has one side of the trap smaller than the other, which obviously would not be effective in digesting prey! =P